World

Kentucky Fugitive Chooses Prison Over Subzero Cold

Police officers wait in heavy snow at the bail address of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on December 16, 2010, after he was released from Wandsworth Prison following a successful bail appeal at the High Court in London.

Vick, 42, broke out of a minimum security prison in Lexington, Kentucky, only to find himself on the lam with only prison-issued khaki pants, a shirt and a jacket in the middle of a Polar Vortex. With nowhere to take shelter, Vick quickly froze in the record-breaking cold in Lexington, where temperatures dropped to 20 below zero with the wind chill.

Hypothermic and out of options, he walked into a motel Monday and asked the clerk if he could use the phone to call the cops. He told police he wanted to turn himself in to escape the freezing air, and told them where to find him.

This was definitely of his own volition," Lexington police spokeswoman Sherelle Roberts said. "It's cold out there, too cold to run around. I can understand why the suspect would turn himself in."

The local fire department treated Vick for hypothermia Monday night, and though police haven't answered questions regarding his whereabouts Tuesday one assumes he's headed straight back to Blackburn Correctional Center. Vick had been serving a 6-year sentence for "burglary and criminal possession of a forged instrument" when he escaped.

Kind of puts the punishing cold in perspective. If it's bad enough to voluntarily return to a six-year prison sentence, imagine what Chicago's homeless are feeling. It's 2 below zero there before the wind chill, and that city has 21,000 homeless people with nowhere to go.

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